Date   : Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:20:07 +0100
From   : "David Hunt" <dm.hunt@...>
Subject: Re: 80186 board in Master

> Hey up,
> 
> I've just discovered one of these in a Master that's been sat 
> in my garage for a few months:
> 
> http://www.danceswithferrets.org/bbc/80186_1.jpg
> http://www.danceswithferrets.org/bbc/80186_2.jpg
> http://www.danceswithferrets.org/bbc/80186_3.jpg
> 
> What is it? A second processor card? Or an interface card for 
> a second processor cheese wedge?
> 

Cool, always good to find something you didn't expect (in a nice way!)

It's the Master 512 - it's an Internal 2nd Processor (Co-Processor) using an
10MHz 80186 (an uprated 8086) with 512KB RAM  that allows your Master to
kind of run many GEM/PC-DOS apps.

Try,

*CONFIGURE INTUBE (selects the internal co-processor) EXTUBE allows the
wedge to take priority over the internal copro
*CONFIGURE TUBE (turns on co-processor detection)

Do CTRL+BREAK and you should see Acorn TUBE 80186 512KB

Then *CONFIGURE NOTUBE to turn it off (it still sits there running - there
are utilities to use the RAM of the idle 80186 board as a RAMDISC)

Don't try and use the CP/M emulation - it's truly suicidal.

I did some ADA and Modula-2 programming for a project years and years ago
and was "delighted" at how it whipped the bottom off an 8088 IBM XT.

I ran mine in a Watford Co-Pro adapter, it ran on a Beeb with an Acorn or
Solidisk 1770 DFS, I vaguely remember it had a little daughter board to
increase the RAM to something like 1Mbyte, it was a solder in "if it dies,
tough" upgrade.

AFAIK the 80186 wasn't available as a "cheese-wedge", but it is quite
straightforward to dismantle the Co-Pro adapter and shoehorn its guts into
the 'wedge.

The software for it must be around, I did remember chatting to folks on this
list about SCO owning the IP on CP/M, GEM and DOS+ - I can't see that it has
an commercial benefit to them, so I wonder if anyone has put up the disc
images ??

Dave ;)